


Call It Home

by Etanseline



Category: Havemercy - Bennett and Jones
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-05 00:33:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etanseline/pseuds/Etanseline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was going to be some kind of homecoming, anyway, and it wasn't that I was any less than glad for it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Call It Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alona](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alona/gifts).



**Alcibiades**  
It was around the time our carriage got within sight of home that I started to wonder if I was ever going to get the homecoming that I figured was due to me.

Now, I had no use for any of the complicated head-games that Greylace practically thrived on, and my feelings when we crested the hill weren't so much complicated as they were a piss-off. The Glendarrow looked the same way I remembered, only last time I'd been looking back instead of forward. Yana was already on the porch, and if I knew Yana, she'd been watching from the kitchen window from the moment she got that letter saying we were coming home at last, and nothing would move her until we were out of the carriage and into her kitchen. There were kids in the front yard; I couldn't recognize any of them from this far out, but they were nephews and nieces for sure.

It was going to be some kind of homecoming, anyway, and it wasn't that I was any less than glad to for it.

The fucked part was that I'd been working for this day for years, and damned if it wasn't soured, just a little, by the feeling that the Esar and his like had got their filthy hands all over it. I wasn't just Alcibiades of the Glendarrow, anymore, just like I hadn't been just Alcibiades the soldier since the Esar had got it in his head to conscript anyone with a Talent back during the war, and they were sending all of this baggage back with me because no one else wanted it - war scars and unwanted Talents and whatever playing ambassador to a bunch of crazies had earned me. Which was, as far as I could figure, a pounding headache, a few more stories about cheating death, and the nutcase across from me, who'd made the journey all the way from Lapis to the middle of nowhere just to make sure that my headache never got the chance to stop.

So I was thinking of Volstov as we pulled closer to home, not thankful for any of it, and if that wasn't the punchline to some nasty joke on the Esar's part, it sure as fuck should be.

That wasn't even the worst. The worst of it was that little Lord Greylace was enjoying the homecoming I'd been looking forward to, happy as a bird and just as unbothered, and I was about ready to flip him for it.

"She looks _just_ like I imagined," Greylace was saying, like he could tell anything from this far out except that Yana was shortish and built like an ox, and like as not because I had described her that way at some point while we were crossing the Cobalts and not because he could see her clearly or anything. "You never told me you had children," he continued, in that tone that he used for court gossip, the one that got my back up every time.

I wasn't in the mood for his games, so I said, "Not mine. One of my brothers or sisters must be visiting." And then I settled in good and comfortable to ignore him, because I had more than enough experience - more than I wanted, way more than I needed - to know that he never knew when to leave well enough alone unless it suited him, and from the way he was bouncing all over the seat, like one of those cockeyed little lap dogs they liked so much in the capital, you could be sure he was in the mood to talk.

Sure enough. "Where do you put them all?" Greylace asked, and from the way he waved out the window I figured at least a few of those kids had run out to greet the carriage. "You don't make them sleep in the _barn_," he said, and slapped a hand over his mouth like the idea offended his sensibilities, when we both knew he was trying to hide his crazy grin. Good of him, anyway, because it would probably have scared the kids something terrible.

Well, if it was like that, then maybe I was up for his game after all. "Wouldn't knock it if I were you. That's where you'll be sleeping."

Greylace's eyes went wide with delight. "But you must be simply dying to sleep in your childhood bed," he said. "I couldn't deprive you of that simple pleasure. No, _I_ will stay in the house with Yana and let you have your room to yourself."

The look I gave Greylace must not have been warning enough - or maybe it was too clear and he was going on out of spite - because he continued, "My dear, you must be very excited; I can finally let you off your leash without fearing you'll do something dreadfully embarrassing in front of people who might think lower of you for doing so. You can run and play to your heart's content." His voice slipped off a little, around a giggle he was trying not to make. "Like old times!"

"Leash," I repeated, just to be sure, and gave him a dirty look.

"Yana and I will watch you from the porch," Greylace continued, and started tapping his nails on the armrest in a way I figured was calculated to drive anyone but Caius Greylace crack-batty for his enjoyment. I looked out the window to try to tune him out, and then I really lost the rest of whatever he was saying, because we reached the house and I froze.

There were two things I was dead certain of: that I was home for real this time, after the run-around the Esar and the wizards and the Ke-Han had given me, and that stepping out of the carriage was going to throw those two worlds together in fact, the same way I'd been dreading in thought since the day I left to become a soldier. I wasn't sure I could open the door.

Greylace solved the problem for me. He got up on his knees on the seat - real careful, so he wouldn't put creases in his robes, and fucked if I could figure out why that was the first thought to cross my mind with everything else I was worried about - and pushed open the carriage window. "Yana, darling!"

Outside the carriage was noisy - the nieces and nephews were making noise to be heard over one another, and the racket set off the animals - and the only clear thing I picked out of it all was Yana's thick accent. "Al! You brought home a pretty girl to meet your Yana--"

Caius Greylace gave me this coy look and made a little noise, part chirping and part giggle, that I didn't know _what_ to think of. Given the choice between him and the rest of it, I opened the door of the carriage to whatever was waiting for me at home.


End file.
